


Paint

by rivendellrose



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a lovely anon over at masseffectkink on LJ, who asked for Shepard discovering Garrus redoing his paint and offering to help, and being told that this would mean something more serious about their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint

When she and Garrus first got together, Shepard had sort of expected to have blue paint all over her pillow and sheets when he was over. Turned out, whatever the turians made the paint out of didn’t come off that easily - she hadn’t managed to so much as smudge it, no matter how hot and heavy their make-out sessions got... and they had certainly given it a good try more than a few times. 

Still, it didn’t last forever, and she wasn’t too surprised to wake one morning and find Garrus leaning over the little mirror by her desk with a jar of dark blue paint in one three-fingered hand, and a brush in the other. 

Shepard wasn’t really a woman for makeup, or any other kind of labor-intensive vanity - this was probably more use than that little mirror’d had since she got back to the Normandy. She was lucky, lately, if she had time to check to make sure her hair didn’t look like a total bird’s nest before she stepped out into whatever new disaster was crashing down on the universe. But there was something... weirdly compelling about watching Garrus do something so simple, so personal - something she so closely associated with him, with everything he was. She stalked up to the desk and perched on the edge of it, watching him carefully go over the faded line that followed the bottom angle of his left mandible.

“Putting your face back to rights, Vakarian?” she murmured. 

He glanced her way, let out a soft “Hmph,” and flared his mandibles slightly. “You know you love it.”

“Maybe not as much as the scars... but yeah, I do.” Shepard trailed her fingertips lightly over the still cracked surface of his right cheek. “Want some help? I’ve never been much of an artist, but I’m pretty sure I can manage to paint within the lines of what you’ve already got done.”

His mandibles clicked, and he blinked at her, oddly owlish for an instant. “That’s... really not something a turian lets someone do lightly,” he said slowly. “Not that you’re ‘just anyone’ by any stretch of the imagination, but... it’s something that only a life-mate would do.”

Shepard smirked, taking the brush from his hand. “I _did_ say I was ready to be a one-turian kind of woman, didn’t I?”

“Well, sure, but I... didn’t want to presume...” More clicking, and blue blush was rising on the relatively unarmored parts of his neck. “This isn’t just long-term-girlfriend territory, Shepard. For a turian - for me - this would be like... like marriage vows, for a human.”

“I’m okay with that if you are.” She leaned over, kissed the flat plate on the top of his forehead, just before his crest started. 

With a slightly stunned expression, he handed the jar of paint over to her and tilted his face up so she could see clearly.

The paint was smooth and thick, with a sharp scent that wasn’t entirely unpleasant despite being one of the strangest and most undescribable that Shepard had ever smelled. Held too close, the smell made her a little bit dizzy, if she was honest, but if she set the jar down it didn’t seem to matter too much - no more than a few youthful experiments with nail varnish before she’d decided it was too damned much hassle. She carefully filled in the line on the left mandible that Garrus had begun, and moved on to the cheekbone above. “So if this would be a turian marriage rite, what else would fall into that category?”

“The rest, we’ve mostly done,” he admitted. “A few things we can’t do - sharing food, sharing wine... Our families would want to meet, feel out the other partner to make sure they were an acceptable choice. You know we’re... not normally a very independent species.”

“I know. Rebel,” she teased lightly. “That’s it, though? No big ceremony or anything?”

“There’s usually a party. But it’s not like what I’ve heard about human weddings, no. We’re not really about religious practices or temples or any of that. The individuals choose, the families consent, the community celebrates. There’s... nothing to say we _couldn’t_ do something more like what humans normally do, if you wanted to, though.”

Shepard shrugged. “I’m not really concerned, if you want to know the truth. This is between us. Our friends know, and once our families have been told... Mostly,” she finished, hesitating as she followed the thinner line up toward the bridge of his nose, “I want to make sure we’ve got whatever you need to feel right about this. I know it matters to you, doing things the right way. And, talking of families... I can’t say I don’t want to have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed properly before I meet your family. Your father...”

Garrus stopped her with a hand gripping comfortingly on her wrist. “My father isn’t likely to approve no matter what I do. He’s been... a little better since he found out that I wasn’t really just tooling around the universe wasting my time and being useless the last few years. I think he likes what he’s hearing about me as an ‘expert,’ about the primarch taking advice from me. Once this is all over, though, I will be very surprised if he doesn’t go right back to disapproving of me just as much as he always has. If he dislikes _us_ , it’s not because of _you_.”

“Still. I’d like to have the best chance I can to make a good impression.” She kissed the back of his hand, then extricated herself and continued painting. “So if there’s anything I can do...”

“Well, showing up as universally-acclaimed war heroes who defeated the Reapers side by side certainly won’t hurt. It might win us a few minutes’ peace before he finds some new way that I’m shaming my family.”

“Like marrying a human,” Shepard pointed out.

Garrus shrugged a little. “He’ll do what he’ll do. There’s no point worrying about it.”

Shepard nodded, finished the last few lines, and sat back to admire her work. 

“Do I look like a... new man?” Garrus tilted his head. His mandibles clicked, a little nervous.

“Nope.” She set the brush aside, and framed his face between her hands. “Same old Garrus. Exactly what I want.”

He checked her work in the mirror, and nodded approvingly, then pulled her down onto his lap. They’d had such a damned hard time figuring out how to fit together, early on, Shepard remembered. It all seemed so easy, now. His arms settled around her waist, his talons solid and comfortable on her back, the wickedly curved claws resting harmless and sturdy against her skin. “So... I’m yours now. Forever.” 

“Is that what that was all about?” 

He nodded again. 

“What about me, then?”

“Mmm.” The talons tightened at her back, just enough delicious pressure to tease. “You’re mine.” 

Shepard laughed softly. “Yeah. I’m yours. But what I meant was, what about me being painted? You said it’s like marriage vows. So we should both do it. I painted you, now you paint me.”

“Shepard...” His voice took on a low growl. “You don’t have to. You’re human. It’s different for you.”

“Maybe I don’t want it to be. Not in this.” She reached over, picked up the paint and the brush from the desk, and handed them to him.

He made an uncomfortable coughing sort of noise. “We shouldn’t. We don’t know if it’s safe. It’s turian, the amino acids--”

“It’s just paint. I’m not planning on eating it.”

“But your skin... absorbs. The lotions you use, things like that. We should ask Mordin first, or Chakwas.”

“I don’t want to.” She took the brush from him and firmly dabbed it on the back of her left hand, then held it up to show him the resulting brilliant blue streak. The wet paint shone a little in the light as she moved her hand. “See? It’s fine. If I get a rash or something, we’ll talk to Mordin. But I’ve been taking anti-anaphylactics for months, and I haven’t had a single allergic reaction to touching you...” she stroked his cheek, “...or kissing you...” matching action to words again, mindful of the wet paint on his cheeks and nose, “ _or_ having sex with you. We’ve been careful... but we haven’t been nearly as careful as we probably should be, sometimes.” She smirked. “After all that, I think I can handle a little paint on my face.”

Garrus’s mandibles seemed to tighten for a moment, then he nodded, his breath like a sigh as he plucked the brush from Shepard’s hand and carefully, patiently, painted the swooping lines onto her face. She let her eyes flutter closed as he went through motions that were confident and familiar to him, but strange to do on someone else. When he stopped, she opened her eyes and looked over at the mirror. The bright blue stood out stark against her skin, and the shapes looked different on a human, without the edges of plates to emphasize and repeat their patterns. She shifted a little, and moved the mirror so she could see both their faces together.

“Do I look more like a turian?”

“No. You look like what you are - my mate.”


End file.
